Omar Sultan's Blog
I was chatting with a customer the other day who was struggling with some of
the implications of cloud computing. The analogy that finally made sense to
them is what I will call 'cloud dining.' I am the cook in the house and I
am tasked with feeding the family. If my 10-year old is lobbying for Italian,
I am cook at home or order out. The decision may also vary from day to day.
For instance, I might not have all the ingredients and have to order out, or,
like this weekend, it may be 103 outside and cooking at home is not all that
appealing. Now, the same can be said for supporting a given application in a
cloud computing environment.
In a fully implemented Data Center 3.0 environment, you can decide if an app
is run locally (cook at home), in someone else’s data center (take-out) and
you can change your mind on the fly in case you are short on data... (more)
Cisco's Data Center Networks Blog
During customer briefings, I’ll often use the concept of the Lego data
center when talking about the vision behind Data Center 3.0. The joy of Lego
(for me at least) is the ability to build something then, (sometimes
violently) break it apart and build something else. This is the operational
model we look to bring to the data center - sans most of the violence - with
Data Center 3.0.
Virtualization has a central role in this vision, but asset virtualization
introduces its own challenges. Arthur Cole has a recent posting where he
notes that ... (more)
Omar Sultan's Blog
Once we cut through the cloud-hype and start looking at the practicalities of
implementing things like workload portability, I think the lessons of the
past will re-assert themselves, this time with things like security and L4-7
services.
Quite a few years ago, when we we positioning the concept of the intelligent
network, we had a slide that showed how features moved from servers or
dedicated hardware to the the network over time. The trigger was usually when
a service, say name resolution, became broadly used. At that point, it was
seldom workable to have tha... (more)
Omar Sultan's Blog
You may be wondering if there is anything to this “Data Center 3.0” thing
beyond some clever marketing folks earning their paychecks. Well, clever
marketing folks aside, the name was very explicitly chosen, so lets
deconstruct it a bit. First of all, this is not LAN 3.0 or SAN 3.0, but Data
Center 3.0.
The point is that, looking ahead, you can expect a more holistic approach to
Cisco data center solutions. The best example of this is the Data Center
Assurance Program—its not just product or feature testing, but full-fledged
system integration testing. VFrame Da... (more)
Omar Sultan is a regular contributor to 
Charles Araujo
Emily Jackson
Brendan Harding
